


Taemin

by bunnoculars



Category: SHINee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-28
Updated: 2018-05-28
Packaged: 2019-05-15 01:00:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14780658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnoculars/pseuds/bunnoculars
Summary: Jonghyun and Taemin talk about the future. Set pre-debut.





	Taemin

“You’re not scared at all, are you. This is normal for you.”

As Jonghyun lays there in the dark, Taemin slowly takes shape. Shifts, gets comfortable.

“I guess.”

“You guess? You’re a weird kid.”

His own laughter is too-loud in his ears, doesn’t cut through the silence swallowing them whole, just bounces right off it and ricochets around the room and honestly kind of freaks him out. He thinks Taemin smiles.

It’s after hours at the training center. Jonghyun has been here since this afternoon. He saw Taemin on his way in, alone in a practice room, dancing without music, and almost trod on him just now when he came in here to sleep. Jonghyun missed the last bus by twenty minutes, but looking at Taemin now, still and quiet, eyes closed, he’s pretty sure Taemin never intended to catch it. He’s pretty sure Taemin picked the third vocal room on 1B for all the same reasons he did, too (cooler, darker, no cars on the ceiling, men’s bathroom next door). This isn’t the first time Taemin has stayed the night.

“You’re more hardcore than most of the guys my age,” Jonghyun tells him. One of these days Jonghyun is going to say _something_ that’ll get a reaction out of Taemin, some proof that Taemin even listens to him, but that wasn’t it. It’s never it. But it's a school night and Taemin’s right over there and Jonghyun can’t really ignore him, so, “You don’t need to be here this late,” he goes on. “You have to know how good you are.”

Minutes pass before Taemin replies, “That’s what people always say.”

Maybe he didn’t want to hear it. Maybe he never does. Who knows.

Asking never gets Jonghyun anywhere, so Jonghyun tries putting words in Taemin’s mouth, “But you know better, huh,” and waits to see what he does with them.

Jonghyun’s eyes have adjusted enough that he catches it when Taemin’s eyes widen and his lips press into a tight line, trapped somewhere between distress and frustration. Jonghyun immediately wants to take it back, rescue him, whatever, because he knows what he’s doing to Taemin, he knows what that place is like. The only way out is talking, and a lot of times that’s worse than giving up and hiding in there.

Just as Jonghyun opens his mouth, though, Taemin beats him to it. Says out of nowhere, “If you’re good at something, you can always get better. It’s no different from being bad at it.”

Surprises Jonghyun into doing a little thinking.

“You can work at some things your whole life and never get anywhere, Taemin-ah,” he says, testing the air. “You have to start somewhere, sure, but you’ve got to have somewhere to start, too.”

He gives himself a little bit of time to search Taemin’s expression, check if that got in anywhere, and then he gives Taemin some time, too, rolls onto his back, stretches his legs out, sighs, stares up into the black where the ceiling used to be. Everything he would do if he weren’t waiting for Taemin’s answer.

“You have to try first, though.” It took long enough, but now that Taemin’s getting the words out, they’re coming so fast Jonghyun can barely keep up. “You won’t know if you can do something or not until you’ve done everything you can. If you don’t try you can’t talk.”

“Are you arguing with me?”

Maybe it doesn’t sound like it, but he’s really asking. They’re both saying the same thing; the only difference is Jonghyun started at the end and Taemin’s stuck on the beginning. He’s not so sure Taemin can see that, is all.

Taemin needs another minute, and this time all that gets Jonghyun is, “No,” with his eyes shut and that something still in his voice.

“Now you’re lying to me, too,” Jonghyun says flatly, and Taemin gives him this look he probably thinks Jonghyun won’t catch. With a face that cute, he probably gets away with this kind of stuff all the time. Like right now, for instance. Jonghyun thinks about getting his hands on Taemin, flicking his forehead or pinching his cheek, but instead he rolls over to hide his smile. In the meantime the silence grows louder and louder. “Taemin-ah.”

“Yes, hyung?” Taemin says, like he’s not a total brat.

Jonghyun hesitates. “Do you think you’ll make it?”

Debut. Get known. Whatever lies on the other side. There are things Jonghyun thinks he can see even from here, but he won’t know until he gets there. If he gets there.

This is something Taemin should have to think about, maybe it’s the first thing Jonghyun’s said that actually should make him stop, think, but Taemin answers him straight away.

“I want to.”

Jonghyun does too, that’s the thing. That’s everything, and that’s nothing. “I have days where it’s like…‘Ah, this is as far as I go.’ ‘If God exists He’s not interested in me.’ Stuff like that.”

Days like today.

Another silence, and this one hurts a little. Then, “I have slumps too.” Everybody does. That doesn’t make it any better when Jonghyun can’t breathe for hating his useless self, when his mistakes crawl under his skin, when he opens his eyes and all he sees is everywhere he’s gone wrong. “Um. Jonghyun hyung.” And when Jonghyun turns over so he’s face-to-face with Taemin again, he remembers he’s not alone, and he’s not talking to himself. “You’re here, too.” Taemin meets his eyes. “You don’t need to be, either.”

“I dropped out.”

It just pops out of him. Surprises Jonghyun as much as Taemin, but Taemin’s the one who’s allowed to go, “Huh?” and Jonghyun’s the one that has to explain himself.

“I dropped out of school,” Jonghyun says, and that’s all, and it comes so easily he feels a little stupid. “This, right here? This is my whole life now.” There’s nothing Taemin can say to that, not really. Everybody that could have had a say already did, his mother listened to him, his father didn’t, his girlfriend laughed at him, his friends were split, the training program helped him enroll in music school, and now there’s no use talking about it. But somehow Taemin has him saying, “The way you see it, am I trying hard enough, do I have the right to talk? Do I have to blame myself if things don’t work out?”

Jonghyun is putting too much on him. Taemin’s just a kid, and he’s probably tired, Jonghyun is probably keeping him up, and now Jonghyun is letting him in on stuff he’s never been able to talk about with any of the people he probably should.

“When I said all that I didn’t mean you,” Taemin says haltingly.

“I know you didn’t,” Jonghyun reassures him, quick as he can. “It’s okay, you can tell me whatever. I’ll listen.”

He waits. If Taemin’s thinking about it, if he’s trying to find a way out, if he’s totally stuck, if he’s falling asleep on him…Jonghyun leaves him right where he is. He waits.

“You’ll make it.”

“What, that’s it?” Jonghyun says.

Taemin’s face doesn’t change. “Mm.”

That’s really it. That’s all Taemin’s going to say, that’s all he has for Jonghyun. And Jonghyun…he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do with it. He wants to tell Taemin off, tell him _don’t just say that,_ but Taemin is the last person on earth who’d just say anything. He doesn’t know why Taemin didn’t have that kind of faith when Jonghyun asked him about his own chances, what Taemin could see in him that Taemin can’t see in himself. Taemin doesn’t know anything, either, he doesn’t know the first thing about life, and he doesn’t know Jonghyun.

Jonghyun still wants to believe him.

“If I don’t make it I’ll blame you instead,” Jonghyun tells him, and it’s only as he shapes the words that he realizes Taemin made him smile again, second time tonight, second time all week. “How are you so sure?”

Another question. It gets a little easier for him to ask every time, and he hopes it’s not getting any harder on Taemin, finding answers for him.

“You’re the best out of all of us,” Taemin says, finally, into the crook of his arm, because out of everything, somehow this is the one thing he can’t say to Jonghyun’s face. “If you don’t make it there’s no point. It wouldn’t mean anything even if I made it, if you didn’t.” And then, when Taemin’s taken a couple breaths, “You have to, hyung.”

It’s just as well Taemin’s not looking, because his face is fighting with itself, and whatever expression wins, it won’t be one he’s ever seen before, and he’ll probably look like an insane person either way.

It passes. Time does, too, even down here. At some point Taemin decides his jacket makes a better pillow than blanket, wadding it up under his head, and curling in on himself. 

“Are you cold?” Jonghyun asks him.

“Not really,” Taemin says.

That’s not a no, so Jonghyun kind of lies, says, “I’m hot,” and then, “Here,” when he’s wrestled his own hoodie off and lain it over Taemin’s body, and watched Taemin snuggle into it. Looking down at Taemin like this, it strikes him all over again, how young he is.

“Where do your parents think you are?”

“Friend’s house,” Taemin says, not bothering to open his eyes. “What about yours?”

His father only ever shows up after Jonghyun’s messed up. And somehow, after everything he's done, his mother still trusts that he won’t.

“My mom believes in me, too,” Jonghyun says. He kind of wants to see if he can make Taemin smile, but he makes do with his hair under his hand, his cheek between his fingers. “You’re not the only one, Taeminnie.”

Taemin eyes find him again, clear and bright in the dark. “Believe in yourself, hyung.”

“I’m trying.”


End file.
